


Burnt

by solar_celeste



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Burns, Home Alone, Hurt/Comfort, Kitchen Accidents, bad planning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 17:01:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18183329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/solar_celeste/pseuds/solar_celeste
Summary: Some miscommunication results in the resident ten year old waking up to a empty house.





	Burnt

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t even know what I’m doing anymore.
> 
> But a recent event gave me this idea.

He woke up to silence, which, in itself, wasn’t strange. Wayne manor was usually quiet, only disturbed by loud thundering voices and the sounds of breaking vases when his brothers decided it was high time to pay a visit. But it was a Friday, and the fact that Damian has school and hadn’t yet been woken by Pennyworth was admittedly a little alarming.

 

The clock reading ten in the morning didn’t help much to ease that worry.

 

Damian’s stomach gave a low growl, sending the boy into motion. He cautiously and quietly peeled back his bedsheets before tip toeing to the door to listen. If someone had managed to bypass his father’s top notch security and the manor had after all been infiltrated, he best be prepared.

 

Pressing a small hand and ear to the cold wood of the door, Damian listened for any unusual noises. Besides the usual creek of the houses old bones, nothing met his ears but silence. So, deeming it safe to proceed, he strapped a small knife to his ankle and proceeded into the hall.

 

Once again it was suspiciously silent, the now noticed absence of his pets adding to the eerie shivers crawling down his neck and spine.

 

Was this some sort of prank set up by his brothers in a form of revenge? He did’t doubt he deserved it for something.

 

He walked ten feet down the hall before turning to a closed door. That’s odd, father never closes his bedroom door, he always leaves it open so Damian can come in as needed. He rapped his knuckles on the wood.

 

“ Father?” He called silently, voice in a hushed whisper before he pushed the door open and searched the room. He didn’t find his father, but he did discover that the mans brief case and cell phone were gone and decided he had already left for the office.

 

It’s ten o’ clock, of course he already left for the office.

 

Pennyworth was a better bet then.

 

Searching the top floor deemed to be fruitless, with no Pennyworth in any of the bedrooms or bathrooms. Most of the bottom floor was proven empty too, not a single presence in the library or his father’s office. It was winter turning spring, but Damian had checked the pool house as well, and again, no Pennyworth. The games and theater rooms were empty just the same.

 

He doubled back, confusion and worry wrinkling his young and rounded features.

 

“ Father? Pennyworth?” He called, coming into the houses main room, where the kitchen and living room were open to each other, and the large front door could be seen through the wide entryway.

 

Crickets sung back to him.

Looking at the small digital watch wrapped around his wrist, Damian saw that it was now nearly eleven thirty and deemed it safe to take time to eat a snack, before his stomach began to eat itself. He was a little peeved though, left without food or a goodbye? His father was always complaining about how skinny and small he was yet he didn’t even feed him.

 

He felt hurt, not that he would admit it of course, and nervous. He had never been left alone before, there were always trainers around at his mother’s, and at his father’s, Jason or Richard had always been called.

 

This was a whole new forte.

 

Maybe they had forgotten about him? Left to go run their daily errands without him getting in the way. Or maybe they had finally come to their senses and-

 

He shook the forbidden feeling of tears away and set on finding his snack.

 

Turns out, they had no prepackaged food. Which was fine, it was all fine, Damian was trained to tackle any obstacle… But really, not even a protein bar?

 

Letting out a sound between a sigh and a groan, Damian settled for the corn soup, a rare (and rather squashed) can hidden in the back of the pantry from when Pennyworth had been on vacation and his father handed the task of cooking. Oh, what a tragedy that had been.

 

The instructions on the back of the can didn’t seem to complicated; On medium heat, poor can into a pot and stir. Let heat for fifteen minutes or until simmering.

 

Got it, he could do that. He survived in the league for ten years, he could heat himself up a can of soup.

 

Navigating around the kitchen until he discovered where the pots are was the hardest part, leaning down to grab one before returning to the stove and flicking the temperature dial to medium. Standing on his tip toes, so that he could more easily see into the tall pot, Damian gently poured in the soup and stirred with a wooden spoon. His stomach growled at the smell, even if it wasn’t nearly as good as Pennyworths creations.

 

This is easy. Damian smirked, stirring again before setting the spoon to the side. Checking up on his progress, he picked the can up again.

 

Let heat for fifteen minutes or until simmering..... Add salt and/or pepper for more flavor.

 

Huh, he hadn’t seen that before. Well, he was a fan of rich flavors, so perhaps a little salt and pepper might be a nice addition? Pennyworth’s dishes were always filled with flavors.

 

Seeing the salt and pepper pressed against the backsplash next to the stove, Damian pushed himself up higher, shimmying so he was hanging in the counter by his stomach, feet swaying, with just enough reach for him to grab his precious spices.

 

He smiled at his success and hopped, feet swinging back to the floor.

 

That’s where he made his mistake, the pot handle that he had forgotten to push out of the way caught his elbow and came tumbling to the floor with him. Hot soup splashed his stomach, and the large pot housed enough liquid that the remainder spilled further, soaking the front of his pajama pants from his waist down to his ankles.

 

At first he felt nothing, there was no sting, no nothing. Then, after the shock resided, agonizing pain kicked in, burning like he never felt before blistered his skin. The thin fabric of his dinosaur pajamas doing little to nothing to help with the blinding pain.

 

The timing was impeccable, as at the same moment his nerves began to shriek, the front door opened. Damian’s guard was down, and he jumped in surprise trying to ready himself for a fight while the boiling broth ate at his legs and lower stomach.

 

Instead, he was met with someone familiar.

 

“ Damian?” His father asked, his scrunched face revealing his confusion, unsure due to the placement of the soup, if his son had gotten sick or perhaps even had an accident. And wasn’t the boy supposed to be in school? Luckily, it didn’t take long for the pieces to form the puzzle. The soup can, hot stove and fallen pot being enough for the detective to drop his brief case and run to his son.

 

“ Damian? What happened, baby? Is it hot?” The man asked, dropping to his knees, dress pants swimming in the liquid and confirming, yes, the soup was indeed scorching Damian.

 

Damian opened his mouth to say he was fine, that everything had been fine and he didn’t need to be babied but all that came out was a broken sob of: “ Fath-er!”

 

That was enough to alarm Bruce and he reacted fast, swooping his son into his arms and hurrying to the nearest tub. Damian’s broken and cries echoing down the halls as the boy tried to muffle them, still unused to the action being acceptable.

 

The master bedroom was the closest, so Bruce immediately raced there and fumbled with the faucet to set the water onto its coldest setting. Not bothering to strip his son out of his already wet pajamas and set him into the too slowly filling tub.

 

Damian’s face was red from trying to hold in his tears of pain, his lip wavered threatening to unleash the dam while his brows were creased with pain. Bruce could feel his heart breaking at the sight.

 

“ Baby, what happened?” He asked, reaching a hand out to stroke a soft tuft of baby hair out of the boys face.

 

“ N-no one w-was home and I-I didn’t kno-ow where y-you were.” Damian chokes out instead of answering his father’s question. Bruce didn’t seem to catch Damians block, and instead, cocks his head in confusion.

 

“ No one was home? What do you mean?” Was his father serious, there was no simpler way to put that.

 

“ P-pennyworth hadn’t come to collect me for school a-and when I woke up there was no one here.” You left me all alone, was all Bruce heard. Before it dawned on him, today was Friday, the 22nd. Alfred had specifically told him he was going to be out of town this morning, he had known that, forgotten, and left his ten year old home alone.

 

“ I’m so sorry Damian, I forgot Alfred was out of town this morning.”

 

“ You didn’t forget about me?”

 

“ Of course not!” Bruce exclaimed, quick to sooth his sons insecurities. “ The change in plans just slipped my mind.” He pulled his son to his chest then, momentarily forgetting how wet the small boy was.

 

“ How about we give you a real bath?” Bruce asks, noting Damian’s suppressed shivers at the cold water, his drenched pajamas clinging to him.

 

Wiping away the last of his tears and nodding his head sheepishly, Damian and Bruce wrestle the kid out of his clothes, Bruce draining the tub and making sure the new water coming in wasn’t cold enough to be chilling but not too hot that it would aggravate Damian’s burns. He adds a dash of bubble bath, because, this kid deserves bubbles in his damn baths, and smiles at his boy.

 

“ May we watch a movie after this?” Damian asks. Bruce barks a laugh, reaching over to ruffle the kiddo’s hair.

 

“ After this, we can watch one hundred movies.”

 

Damian’s stomach protests loudly.

 

....

 

“ Popcorn too.”


End file.
